He added: “There was plenty of bad, but you still have a wee glint in your eye talking about it, like veterans do. That was our own war.” Get all the latest Glasgow news and headlines sent straight to your inbox twice a day by signing up to our free newsletter. Glasgow is named Europe’s Murder Capital, driven by a violent territorial gang and knife culture. In the housing schemes of adjacent Lanarkshire, Scotland’s former industrial heartland, wee boys become postcode warriors. This book is about the people that the system leaves behind and the different paths they might take. There comes an interesting moment in the book where everything sort of shifts. Most people move past the violence and drugs as they leave teenagehood, but some people cling on to it and go down a deep, dark pathway. This book is about both of these types, and we find ourselves hoping and praying that those on the dark pathway will somehow find the light. Often, they don’t. The TV adaptation of Armstrong’s Times-bestselling and Waterstone’s Book of the Month novel will follow Azzy during three crucial years of his life, looking at the world through his eyes as he navigates Scottish masculinity, gang violence, substance abuse, mental health, male suicide and murder.

Book review: The Young Team, by Graeme Armstrong - The Scotsman

Perfectly captured the “ned” and rave culture in Scotland in and around 2005 onwards. It went beyond the stereotype and showed us people who get involved in violent territorial gangs do so for the brotherhood, sense of belonging and status within “the scheme”. Absolutely. I think part of the seductive nature of gangs is that there is a brotherhood between gang members. It’s a tough environment, a very masculine environment, where young men are under intense pressure to put up these hard fronts. In the brotherhood of a gang setting you find safety in numbers, but also camaraderie. In my own experience, when I stopped hanging about with gangs and stopped taking drugs and moved to the city, I felt a kind of loneliness. I could go on for ages about how well this book handles any one of these. The gang members who aren't impoverished, but seek out gangs anyway, the kid whose family environment of alcoholism dictate how he copes, and the females who affect Azzys decisions. All worthy of analysis and I kind of wish I still worked in Glasgow schools to put this in the hands of every kid who should read it. The connection they'd feel would make readers of every one of them!! I had no idea about the anti-social behaviour aspect. It was quite a revelation. You start seeing gang insignia everywhere, it was this presence – and once you knew about it you wanted in.” Graeme Armstrong is a Scottish writer from Airdrie. His teenage years were spent within North Lanarkshire’s gang culture. Alongside overcoming struggles with drug addiction, alcohol abuse and violence, he read English as an undergraduate at the University of Stirling; where he returned to study a Masters’ in Creative Writing. He is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Strathclyde.It’s also the reason why Armstrong is about to publish his debut novel, The Young Team, a work of fiction but very much based on his own experiences in an Airdrie gang as a teenager. The novel follows its protagonist, Azzy, across three turning points in his life: aged 14 and new to gangs, then 17 and struggling with a drug addiction, and finally, aged 21, off drugs and trying to move on. “Me and Azzy are the same person in some respects and in other respects, we’re completely different,” explains Armstrong. “He’s a fictional entity but a mouthpiece for me to narrate my own experiences especially when it comes to violence and mental health and suicide and trauma.” I was on my knees that night. I’d said it a million times before,” he said. “I put my mum through hell. Azzy Williams,” A say, aw confidence.’ We love to welcome fresh, new voices to Scotland’s literary scene here at BooksfromScotland, and we’re excited to read Graeme Armstrong’s debut novel, The Young Team. We hope this little taster will have you rushing to the bookshops! After a long hiatus - mainly due to work commitments - I have finally finished this Graeme Armstrong impressive debut. Not because it was no good. It is brilliant raw stuff, clearly drawn from his own teenage experiences as Armstrong used to form part of one of Glasgow's terrible gangs and drink and drugs and violence were his life ingredients. I’d had a great childhood which I threw away for a life of gangs and drugs. My time, money and energy had been spent on drugs. It had got to the stage where I was on my own with nothing left to fill up my time to keep me sane.

Graeme Armstrong: ‘When I stopped taking drugs, I felt a kind

There are a lot of really interesting insights into classism in Scotland and Graeme emphasises that the people in this situation are no less intelligent than anyone else, even though people treat them like they are. They just haven’t had the chance at life, or the tools to give them the chance at life, that other people have. They have to fight to get out of a dead-end life. Azzy Williams is ready. Ready to smoke, pop pills, drink wine and ready to fight. But most of all, he’s ready to do anything for his friends, his gang, his young team. Seven years later, Armstrong had his novel but the next challenge was publishing it. Was a story written in Lanarkshire vernacular about gangs a hard sell? “Oh, absolutely,” he laughs. “I did around 300 submissions before I managed to get an agent. People were interested in my story and the authenticity but some were very hesitant to commit to a novel in that dialect.” Graeme Armstrong appears at Waterstones, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, on 5 Mar and Aye Write! festival, Glasgow, on 12 MarArmstrong added: “I am absolutely buzzing to be working with Claire Mundell at Synchronicity and the team to develop ‘The Young Team’ for the screen. Their understanding of the landscape, both geographical and cultural, has made for an exciting coming together of multiple talents. Screenwriter Ben Tagoe has first-hand understanding of the transition of U.K. youth culture from ’80s terrace casuals and rave pioneers into the new and darker world of ‘00s Scottish young team gang culture. I grew up as middle-class in the noughties in Scotland. I also went to a school that’s was just off being classed as impoverished.

TV - The Young Team - The DreamCage TV - The Young Team - The DreamCage

Damian Barr, author of Maggie & Me Armstrong’s hard-hitting novel is Trainspotting for a new generation. Azzy Williams is ready. Ready to smoke, pop pills, drink wine and ready to fight. But most of all, he’s ready to do anything for his friends, his gang, his young team. Round here, in the schemes of the forgotten industrial heartland of Scotland, your mates, your young team – they’re everything. Azzy Williams is fourteen; a rising star, this is his life and he loves it. Azzy Williams is seventeen; he’s out of control. Azzy Williams is twenty-one; he’d like to leave it all behind. But a way out isn’t easy to find . . . Inspired by the experiences of its author, Graeme Armstrong, The Young Team is an energetic novel, full of the loyalty, laughs, mischief, boredom, violence and threat of life on these streets. It looks beyond the tabloid stereotypes to tell a powerful story about the realities of life for young people in Britain today. The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong – eBook DetailsHe was expelled from Airdrie Academy aged 14 after a series of incidents and was moved to Coatbridge High, where the rival teams were even more cut-throat than the mining town where he came from.